the act of taking revenge
(Revenge means to harm someone to get them back for something harmful that they have done.)

I should think four fingers would be enough to satisfy your thirst for vengeance.

’ You see what the workings of his little mind have been during these two days; he must have been planning that vengeance all day, and raving about it at night.

Show more

At last he began to be bitterly and ominously haunted by the blood of his murdered victim, by the young life he had destroyed, by the blood that cried out for vengeance.

If the evil-doing of men moves you to indignation and overwhelming distress, even to a desire for vengeance on the evil-doers, shun above all things that feeling.

He looked as though he was in a fever, he spoke of the blood that cried for vengeance, the blood of the father murdered by his son, with the base motive of robbery!

He genuinely believed in the prisoner’s guilt; he was accusing him not as an official duty only, and in calling for vengeance he quivered with a genuine passion "for the security of society."

Yes, do you know that she might have given me that money, yes, and she would have given it, too; she’d have been certain to give it, to be revenged on me, she’d have given it to satisfy her vengeance, to show her contempt for me, for hers is an infernal nature, too, and she’s a woman of great wrath.

It is true that the blood he had shed was already crying out for vengeance, for, after having ruined his soul and his life in this world, he was forced to ask himself at that same instant what he was and what he could be now to her, to that being, dearer to him than his own soul, in comparison with that former lover who had returned penitent, with new love, to the woman he had once betrayed, with honorable offers, with the promise of a reformed and happy life.

"One may say with certainty, gentlemen of the jury," the prosecutor continued, "that outraged nature and the criminal heart bring their own vengeance more completely than any earthly justice.

There are no more uses of "vengeance" identified with this meaning in the book.

Show samples from other sources

Most Americans wanted vengeance after the 9-11 attacks.

Her evolutionary benefit theory of vengeance is supported by studies showing that a person’s desire for revenge increases when others see their mistreatment.